Dark Night of the Soul

Dark Night of the Soul

While we are in a dark night of the soul experience, hold steady knowing the light will appear once again.

Whenever a word is overused, it is most likely being misused, and over time, it begins to lose its meaningfulness. For example, we often refer to a fleeting feeling of depression or a period of confusion, as a dark night of the soul, but neither of these things qualifies as such. A dark night of the soul is a very specific experience that some people encounter on their spiritual journeys. There are people who never encounter a dark night of the soul, but others must endure this as part of the process of breaking through to the dawn of higher consciousness.

The dark night of the soul invites us to fully recognize the confines of our egos' identity. We may feel as if we are trapped in a prison that affords us no access to light or the outside. We are coming from a place of higher knowing, and we may have spent a lot of time and energy reaching toward the light of higher consciousness. This is why the dark night has such a quality of despair: We are suddenly shut off from what we thought we had realized and the emotional pain is very real. We may even begin to feel that it was all an illusion and that we are lost forever in this darkness. The more we struggle, the darker things get, until finally we surrender to our not knowing what to do, how to think, where to turn. It is from this place of losing our sense of ourselves as in control that the ego begins to crack or soften and the possibility of light entering becomes real.

Some of us will have to endure this process only once in our lives, while others may have to go through it many times. The great revelation of the dark night is the releasing of our old, false identity. We finally give up believing in this false self and thus become capable of owning and embracing the light.

DailyOM Course Spotlight

by Abi Carver

One of the reasons yoga is so effective at alleviating pain in the lower back, neck and shoulders is that it works on a number of different levels simultaneously--loosening up joint restrictions, stretching tight muscles, re-activating weak muscles, adjusting alignment, relaxing the body and calming the mind. Yoga--along with a few other simple techniques--can be really effective at relieving the pain. We can release tension, restore range of motion and re-activate weakened muscles. A regular yoga practice has the potential to prevent and heal injury, to make you stronger, fitter, more supple, to enhance your physical performance and to sharpen your mental focus. However, with everything you have to do, we know that you don't have time to find a 90-minute yoga for recovery class to attend every week. That's why Abi Carver put together this course to distill and simplify this crucial aspect of your wellbeing into 15-minute guided video practices.